Gregor Townsend swerves England ploy furore

Grigg will be the only starter to have played under ten games for ScotlandSNS

If rugby really is just chess with thuggery attached, where on the spectrum can we put England’s ploy of having persuaded one of the assistant referees for their match against Ireland on Saturday to come along a few days early to run the rule over one of their practice games?

Did Eddie Jones, the England coach, nick a pawn off the board when Joe Schmidt, his Ireland counterpart, had his attention elsewhere, or was it a punch below the belt? Staggeringly, World Rugby, the game’s global ruling body, allows these things to happen — or rather, does not disallow them — but the look on Gregor Townsend’s face yesterday afternoon betrayed the Scotland coach’s bemusement that such a state of affairs could exist.